The following description relates to coffee brewing techniques and devices.
Coffee may be brewed both at home and commercially by various methods including dripped and percolated. Dripped coffee may be favored, especially in commercial settings, because of preferable flavor, ease of preparation, or other reasons. In the dripped method, ground coffee may be placed in a coffee filter and the filter placed in a coffee holder. In some coffee brewers, the coffee holder may be constructed to function as both the holder and filter. For example, the coffee holder may have a fine mesh sieve at the bottom that retains the ground coffee but permits passage of liquids. Hot water is released at a predetermined rate onto ground coffee and the coffee chemicals carried from the ground coffee by the hot water, which then seeps through the coffee filter and is directed into a coffee vessel for immediate use or storage for later use.
The ground coffee may comprise a blend of two or more varieties of coffee beans. The coffee beans may be selected to provide a desired resultant brewed coffee having certain characteristics, for example, a balance of types of flavors and acidity. The strength of the brewed coffee may depend upon the length of time that the hot water is in contact with the ground coffee and the quantity of ground coffee available to provide the coffee flavoring chemicals. The rate at which water is released onto the ground coffee may be adjusted so that the hot water remains in the coffee holder long enough to brew the coffee before seeping through the filter and into the coffee vessel. The quantity of coffee in the holder may also be a factor in the length of time that the water remains in the holder. The holder flow-through rate and the water release rate are balanced so as to prepare a consistent strength of brewed coffee for a given amount of ground coffee.